Transcript: Driverless Daily broadcast, September 25, 2026

Opening

Otto: ...and even with the steering wheels still in some of them, they are definitely making a statement.

Lane: Good evening, I'm Lane.

Otto: And I'm Otto. Welcome to Driverless Daily.

Lane: Our top story, Waymo has reported that its Driver system has driven over 271.3 million rider-only miles without a human driver. According to the SelfDrivingCars subreddit, the data shows a significant reduction in crashes resulting in injuries or airbag deployments, including a 95 percent reduction in serious injury crashes and an 82 percent reduction in airbag deployments compared to human drivers. This news is being covered by Electrek, The Verge, TechCrunch, and Yahoo Finance.

Otto: That is a massive reduction in serious incidents.

Lane: It certainly is.

Otto: Up next, NHTSA has opened a formal investigation into comma.ai's openpilot software after five crashes that killed three people. Electrek reports the probe covers an estimated 30,000 comma three, comma three X, and comma four devices, following crashes involving stopped vehicles in the lane ahead of the driver, including a fatal crash in Louisiana in February 2026.

Lane: The regulators certainly will be looking closely at that fine print.

Otto: Now, to, the Volkswagen unit MOIA is beginning US robotaxi rides with a rollout in Orlando, Reuters reports.

Lane: More expansion for the US market.

Otto: This just in, a large number of Tesla Cybercabs and Robotaxis have been spotted in Texas. According to the SelfDrivingCars subreddit, a storage facility in Houston is filled with these vehicles, which feature a gold livery and unique wheel design, though some still have steering wheels.

Lane: The scale of that deployment is hard to ignore.

Otto: It remains to be seen how many actually reach the public.

Lane: Our next story, Gatik CEO Gautam Narang recently covered Cathie Wood investment and the driverless truck network, as reported by qz.

Otto: Investors are always watching these networks.

Lane: Up next, a Ph.D. student at Clemson is researching ways to make autonomous vehicles safer, smarter, and harder to hack, according to news.clemson.edu.

Otto: Security is just as important as the driving itself.

Lane: Precisely.

Otto: Lastly, the Lucid CFO says the Uber-Nuro robotaxi is unlike anything else on the road, according to electric-vehicles. That's from eletric-vehicles.

Lane: A bold claim for a new era of transit.

Otto: We will have to wait and see.

Sign-off

Lane: Thanks for joining us.

Otto: We'll see you tomorrow.